I'm just curious, is WJ crewing the B-767 fleet with their very own pilots or, are these birds crewed by another company? I am wondering how pilots who have never flown longhaul ops can use seniority to bid left seats on longhaul aircraft without any previous experience. Some exposure to longhaul ops is a normal industry practice before being able to bid a longhaul left seat. I am just curious how WJ has set this operation up and how it will work when the new B787's arrive?
Qmann

Qdrivermann wrote:Some exposure to longhaul ops is a normal industry practice before being able to bid a longhaul left seat.

Not sure what industry you are referring to as that is not normal practice at all in aviation. Trucking perhaps? Every airline in North America that I am familiar with bids positions by seniority.

And to answer your first question, the 767s are WS pilots.

Thanks for such a sarcastic reply - not called for at all. And you are a moderator in this forum?
So what you're telling the world is a high seniority B737 pilot at WJ who has never had exposure to longhaul ops can bid him/herself right into the left seat from the get-go? I applaud those who have this opportunity - just very surprising compared to regular INTERNATIONAL industry practice. Every Asian/African/European longhaul carrier I have friends/former colleagues working at (myself included) require previous time as an F/O on widebody/longhaul ops before bidding a left seat. I needed 3000 hours of widebody time in widebody/long haul operations before moving over to the left seat - which BTW allowed me to upgrade recently at Norweigan on the B787. It was a simple curious question - why do you feel the need to reply as you did? There is no need to be rude to me.
Qmann

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Last edited by Qdrivermann on Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

CP of the 767 is an ex-C3 Check A (757) and is supported by some of our top talent (Standards support). Most of the Captain's have recent ETOPs PAC experience and a few with NAT experience prior to the 67. Almost all of the FO's are highly experienced in ETOPS PAC and NAT. Some have been Captains here as well. Not sure we need to hire "outside" help to make our way into the overseas market.

Qdrivermann wrote: I am wondering how pilots who have never flown longhaul ops can use seniority to bid left seats on longhaul aircraft without any previous experience.

WestJet was flying to Hawaii, Dublin and Glasgow with the 737 before getting the 767. Is that enough experience to fly a 767 to London Gatwick?

Thanks for that, I did not know they were crossing the Atlantic or half the Pacific with the B737 - that explains a lot! I just asked a simple curious question. The bigger question here now for me is why my question solicits sarcastic replies that contain negative and agressive undertones. Not the finest art of communication. The internet really does take the person out of the communication - I am pretty sure if you or the mod that posted the original reply above were to meet me in person and answer my question your replies would more than likely be polite and relatively straight forward. I wasn't implying anything in my question - just asked a simple question that came to mind.

CCR wrote:CP of the 767 is an ex-C3 Check A (757) and is supported by some of our top talent (Standards support). Most of the Captain's have recent ETOPs PAC experience and a few with NAT experience prior to the 67. Almost all of the FO's are highly experienced in ETOPS PAC and NAT. Some have been Captains here as well. Not sure we need to hire "outside" help to make our way into the overseas market.

Outstanding and informative - thanks for taking the time to reply to me! And thanks for the polite response! The whole WJ operation is a mystery to me - hence the question! I was wondering if any former Canadian drivers were at WJ that had previous B767 experience? I'm not sure where the B787 will take me - sounds like WJ has a good grip on their widebody/longhaul operation. Thanks again.

At AC one can go from any position to wide body capt with no overseas experience and some do go 320 captain -> wide body captain with no overseas experience. Obviously most of their fos will have some experience though its not a requriement.

Not to hijack a westjet thread but just trying to share other examples.

Qdrivermann wrote: The bigger question here now for me is why my question solicits sarcastic replies that contain negative and agressive undertones. Not the finest art of communication. The internet really does take the person out of the communication - I am pretty sure if you or the mod that posted the original reply above were to meet me in person and answer my question your replies would more than likely be polite and relatively straight forward. I wasn't implying anything in my question - just asked a simple question that came to mind.

I think you need to lighten up a bit. To be honest, from the outside looking in, your question kinda sounded a bit mocking of WJ pilots and their qualifications for doing the job they do, so I would imagine it wouldn't be taken the best.

Thanks for that, I did not know they were crossing the Atlantic or half the Pacific with the B737 - that explains a lot! I just asked a simple curious question. The bigger question here now for me is why my question solicits sarcastic replies that contain negative and agressive undertones. Not the finest art of communication. The internet really does take the person out of the communication - I am pretty sure if you or the mod that posted the original reply above were to meet me in person and answer my question your replies would more than likely be polite and relatively straight forward. I wasn't implying anything in my question - just asked a simple question that came to mind.

Qdrivermann wrote:So what you're telling the world is a high seniority B737 pilot at WJ who has never had exposure to longhaul ops can bid him/herself right into the left seat from the get-go? I applaud those who have this opportunity - just very surprising compared to regular INTERNATIONAL industry practice. Every Asian/African/European longhaul carrier I have friends/former colleagues working at (myself included) require previous time as an F/O on widebody/longhaul ops before bidding a left seat. I needed 3000 hours of widebody time in widebody/long haul operations before moving over to the left seat - which BTW allowed me to upgrade recently at Norweigan on the B787.

That's not correct - perfectly possible to go from shorthaul Captain to longhaul Captain. It depends on the Airline.

My first flight on the 767 as Captain was Amsterdam-Miami with an Instructor.

My third sector on the A340 as Captain was Colombo-London Heathrow at MTOW.

The whole idea behind Line Training is to familiarise a new pilot with the operation.

Theres nothing difficult about flying widebody aircraft imho.

Same goes for longhaul flying - actually a lot less complicated than multi-sector shorthaul ops imho.

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Qdrivermann wrote:So what you're telling the world is a high seniority B737 pilot at WJ who has never had exposure to longhaul ops can bid him/herself right into the left seat from the get-go? I applaud those who have this opportunity - just very surprising compared to regular INTERNATIONAL industry practice. Every Asian/African/European longhaul carrier I have friends/former colleagues working at (myself included) require previous time as an F/O on widebody/longhaul ops before bidding a left seat. I needed 3000 hours of widebody time in widebody/long haul operations before moving over to the left seat - which BTW allowed me to upgrade recently at Norweigan on the B787.

That's not correct - perfectly possible to go from shorthaul Captain to longhaul Captain. It depends on the Airline.

My first flight on the 767 as Captain was Amsterdam-Miami with an Instructor.

My third sector on the A340 as Captain was Colombo-London Heathrow at MTOW.

The whole idea behind Line Training is to familiarise a new pilot with the operation.

Theres nothing difficult about flying widebody aircraft imho.

Same goes for longhaul flying - actually a lot less complicated than multi-sector shorthaul ops imho.[/quote

Thanks for the constructive feedback. You are correct it has to do with the company one works at and what one is exposed to. I haven't flown in Canada for decades - I had no idea how things worked at WJ. All I know is that my friends who fly widebody/longhaul at AC as Captains all had at least a decade under their belt as widebody/long haul F/Os before ever being upgraded on to the left seat of the widebody/long haul fleets. At Norweigan we need the three thousand hours on widebody/long haul ops before we can be upgraded (exactly my situation). I really look forward to seeing WJ get the B787s, the pilots are going to love them! It's by far the best aircraft I've flown!!

Qdrivermann wrote: The bigger question here now for me is why my question solicits sarcastic replies that contain negative and agressive undertones. Not the finest art of communication. The internet really does take the person out of the communication - I am pretty sure if you or the mod that posted the original reply above were to meet me in person and answer my question your replies would more than likely be polite and relatively straight forward. I wasn't implying anything in my question - just asked a simple question that came to mind.

I think you need to lighten up a bit. To be honest, from the outside looking in, your question kinda sounded a bit mocking of WJ pilots and their qualifications for doing the job they do, so I would imagine it wouldn't be taken the best.

Thanks for the feedback - no insult intended from my side - I was ignorant of the operations at WJ - hence the question. I really had no idea they were crossing the pond already with the B737. If you stay overseas for as long as I have you tend to loose touch with what's going on back home.
To be honest - firing off a rude, sarcastic or aggressive reply says more about the character and educational background of the one replying... they just lay out their best version of themselves hiding mostly behind the anonymity of internet. Just imagine where we would all be in this world if our F/Os were afraid to ask a potentially embarassing, ignorant or 'kinda sounds like' questions... because they were afraid of soliciting a negative or aggressive reply. My greatest sin on this thread is that I assumed that I am communicating to an international and culturally literate group - I have at minimum 8 different nationalities onboard on any given flight. Most are not English native speakers (myself included) - if one feels that a simple question is mocking or insulting in some way, then taking a step back and asking a few polite questions to have the question rephrased would be an appropriate response. We should never assume in aviation that everybody is a native English speaker and we should remind ourselves that our very own replies are reflective of our characters and our own fears and limitations as people. Aviation by it's very nature is international. Thanks for the great feedback people. And I am really truely impressed at far WJ has come - and happy to see all the opportunities afforded to so many Canadian pilots! Fly safe everybody and enjoy the view; we all worked pretty hard to get this far!

Thanks for the constructive feedback. You are correct it has to do with the company one works at and what one is exposed to. I haven't flown in Canada for decades - I had no idea how things worked at WJ. All I know is that my friends who fly widebody/longhaul at AC as Captains all had at least a decade under their belt as widebody/long haul F/Os before ever being upgraded on to the left seat of the widebody/long haul fleets. At Norweigan we need the three thousand hours on widebody/long haul ops before we can be upgraded (exactly my situation). I really look forward to seeing WJ get the B787s, the pilots are going to love them! It's by far the best aircraft I've flown!!

It might have had as much to do with the environment at the time for how long it actually took to advance to the widebodies as it did with any type of policy.

When "longhaul" consists of one flight across the Atlantic to Europe, yeah, it's a no-brainer. Just study the NAT ops and procedures. VHF and radar coverage most of the way, good English in Iceland, good HF (I assume those B767's don't have CPDLC lol). You can't really compare WestJet to companies like Norwegian or the Asian/ME carriers. The latter have a much more varied route structure and thus perhaps is why they like previous experience.

I wouldn't consider longhaul or shorthaul more "difficult" than one another, but in a truly global operation they're totally different environments in every way from procedures, fatigue, language, culture, and scale. You of all people Eric should know that operating in India, or China, or Australia, or over the pole, or for 15 hours straight isn't quite the same as six sectors of YOW-YUL. Of course there are equally challenging environments in North America, but they're very different challenges. I don't recall encountering a typhoon in YVR or having difficulty understanding the controller's English in YYZ. Nope, it's not rocket science, but it's definitely not the same, and it still requires developing some experience in ops one hasn't been exposed to previously. It's weird to me that stating as much makes certain people bristle indignantly.

Amusingly ironic that the poster is attacked for being "sensitive" when his inquiry about the WS B767 was met by such obvious insecurity!

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I’m still waiting for my white male privilege membership card. Must have gotten lost in the mail.

WS also had some contract instructors (I want to say from Boeing) who flew with our pilots in the first few months of 767 operations, to help ensure a quick learning curve for the initial cadre. That is fairly standard ops in the airline world, whenever a completely new type is introduced, factory instructors will follow. It is all a part of the purchase price, that includes support in all facets of the operation. I strongly suspect when Norwegian introduced the B787, there were Boeing pilots helping out for the first couple of months. Ask around, and hopefully you can report back to us.

B777 to B787 CCQ is about 3 weeks where I work. 3 days of CBT, 3 FB, 2 full flight, a PPC and 2 sectors of which one is a line check, followed by 6 months consolidation on the 787 and then a B777 PPC and then Crew Sked gets to shag us even harder!

JTrain wrote:WS also had some contract instructors (I want to say from Boeing) who flew with our pilots in the first few months of 767 operations, to help ensure a quick learning curve for the initial cadre. That is fairly standard ops in the airline world, whenever a completely new type is introduced, factory instructors will follow. It is all a part of the purchase price, that includes support in all facets of the operation. I strongly suspect when Norwegian introduced the B787, there were Boeing pilots helping out for the first couple of months. Ask around, and hopefully you can report back to us.

JT

Great posting. I couldn't agree more - I've seen this on more than one occasion. Bombardier sent production instructor pilots together with FlightSafety instructors to train way back in the Q400 days; Embraer sent contract instructor pilots to do groundschool/simulator/line-indoc at the company where my best mate works and yes, we had the 'Big-Three' from the US do our initial groundschool and training on the B787. We even had four TREs from AeroLogic for our initial line-indoc. So, yes, quite a common practice. This was the answer I was looking for in my initial posting - not some insecure retort about trucking... I figured there had to have been some experience brought-in for the initial group. Do you guys think WJ will bring in some externals when they start getting their B787s? I wouldn't mind working back home - even for a short while!!

I would think not, there is plenty of expertise already inhouse. And we had the FANS system installed. Quit making is sound like WestJet has no experience, we have a 12 year history of flying ETOPS in the North Pacific, as well as the Atlantic and WATRS. The 767 operation is headed up by an extrordanary line up of personnel and the 787 will be in great hands.

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